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When thousands of developers lined up to plunk down $1500 to pre-order a Google Glass prototype, it wasn’t just because of Sergey Brin’s awesome demo. The idea of a video conferencing system that fits neatly tucked away in the top of your glasses opens up countless new opportunities for augmented reality and experience sharing applications. Seemingly alone in the field, Google now has a direct competitor, TTP (The Technology Partnership), a Cambridge, England company that is demonstrating an alternate approach.

Google Glass places its information display off to one side and above the wearers’ field of view. That placement is a deliberate one, prioritizing a non-disruptive approach to presenting information, instead of information being displayed directly in front of your vision. When I tried a Google Glass prototype, it was initially a little hard to get used to looking off to the side to see the display. In exchange, I had an unobstructed view of the world in front of me, and the Glass screen never intruded unless I wanted it to.

By contrast, the TTP prototype mounts a small projector in the arm of its glasses that projects a VGA-resolution image onto a lens of the glasses. This has a couple of direct consequences. First, the TTP offering requires the wearer to have actual lenses in front of their eyes. With Google Glass, only a small screen off to the side is required. More importantly, the TTP solution is ideal for overlaying information about the surrounding scene directly onto the scene itself.

Another clever innovation offered by TTP is an electrode-based passive eye-tracking system, providing for user control of the glasses without requiring a power-intensive camera. TTP has been an innovator in electrically-controlled eyeglass lenses in the past, having developed technology that allows the focal length of a lens to be controlled by applying an electric current. Combining TTP’s electronic refocusing capability with its micro-projector may make it possible to offer 3D experiences as a form of augmented reality.

TTP imagines that information of immediate interest — like heart rate or mileage for a runner — could be displayed overlaid on its lenses. It sees potential applications not just in sports and gaming, but for doctors or other professionals who need immediate access to critical information without looking away from the task at hand.

Unlike Google, TTP isn’t planning to offer a product directly to consumers. Its monochrome-only prototype is designed to attract interest from possible licensing partners, including at least one Silicon Valley company. That’s probably a good thing, because while TTP may have some unique technical expertise in miniature video projection, it is unlikely to be able to construct as complete a product as Google Glass — that integrates audio, video and wireless sharing all in a single compact over-ear design. There may well be room for both approaches in the market. Conferencing and sharing applications favor Google’s unobtrusive approach, while heads-up information is much better presented by being directly overlaid on the scene.

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They should stop trying to design it in an unobtrusive way and try to cram it into a pair of glasses. While google has shown that it is ‘possible’, it still looks stupid, and makes the whole setup more expensive.

What they should do is try to design an attractive package for this technology that yes, advertises itself, but in addition, looks good in the process. This approach also loosens the size and shape requirements, so you can have an outside package that is more ideal for housing the internal components.

zapper

Micro projector is the way to go .
And eye tracking is just right.
I would like to use it as a monitor only paired with my cell phone.

kachan64

Steam (Valve) is going to make the same isn’t it?
Even MS made Smart Glass lol.
There gonna be a lot of competitors out there who are focusing the same thing.

MS’s SmartGlass got nothing to do with glasses, completely different idea (also, SmartGlass is software only, while these are hardwares as well). And no, I don’t think Valve is doing anything of the kind.

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